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When I was a kid growing up overseas in the ‘80s and ‘90s, first in Nigeria, then Japan, it was cheaper for our family of seven to buy around-the-world tickets than fly directly to Michigan where our relatives lived. My parents took full advantage of this pricing oddity. We visited every country we could. This was before Google, before Airbnb, before Uber—before the Internet. It wasn’t easy. My dad would wash dirty diapers in hotel sinks at night after we visited at least four hotels to find the cheapest rate, all of us lugging our bags (without wheels) around town.

Of the memories I have of our family adventures, I regularly come back to two in particular.

The first is from a visit to Singapore when my dad, a Christian, stood at the top of the stairs leading to a mosque, talking with the imam. Both men were at ease, showing each other courtesy and respect. I wasn’t impressed at the time. The rest of us wanted to go do something else and my dad was holding us up, but I’ve never forgotten the image of two strangers of differing faiths making time to be with each other. There was no wall of suspicion between them. They delighted in their conversation.

Another, more general memory, is of my mom talking with craftspeople: jewelry makers in New Mexico, basket weavers in Japan, soap makers in California, furniture makers in China. She could hold up the family to talk basketry with a local artisan in a market the way my dad could hold us up at a mosque, or a museum. To this day, if she revisits a place, she seeks out the artisan she spoke with months, or even years ago.

It strikes me that the sheer force of humbly showing up at a shop or a house of worship in an unfamiliar town or country is a blazing sign of wanting to bust through cultural walls to be with the people on the other side. At which point the people on the other side are nearly always willing to be with you, too.

We’re living in a moment in history when we are entrenched in our own identifiers, suspicious of those who look, live, politic, and pray differently than us. We talk about The Wall (you know the one,) all the while building our own walls, emblazoned with memes, that keep us from truly seeing and being with each other.

My son, now eight, has been traveling since the day he was born. We used to tuck him into a Baby Bjorn, strap him on, and carry him with us wherever we went. Once, we took him on a fan boat ride through a jungle in Vietnam. It was hot and the boat was loud, but he seemed happy. Possibly, the thrill of it worked its way into his bloodstream. He loves to travel. He has a gift for making friends and a natural curiosity that reminds me of his grandparents.

After the 2016 election, my husband suggested we travel this summer to explore family roots in the Netherlands and visit a dear brother in France. To me, this idea didn’t seem wise. The future seemed—and still does—not just precarious, but grim. Shouldn’t we save money? Ride this out? See what happens? Shouldn’t we huddle up?

I think about how carefully I watched my parents as a kid and how their steady, joyful openness while traveling formed my perception of the world as a place in which we are all connected. I want the same for my kids. I want them to know that huddling up and hiding behind walls of our own making stunts our shared humanity. I want them to engage in enthusiastic conversations about baskets, and religion, and whatever else, with zero thought of changing other people’s minds but with a willingness to change their own.

My son has a new patch on his backpack that says, “Think Peace.” He feels this communicates a nice message to the people he will meet in the Netherlands.

Now, more than ever, is the right time to travel, have fun, and say hello to a neighboring city, or state, or a country you’ve always wanted to visit. Bust through some walls. Meet the world. Be reminded that we’re all in this together.

For checklists and the mechanics on conducting a successful author school visit go to your publisher’s web site and search ‘school visits’. Random House, for example, features a site called Set up a Visit that outlines basic information you and the host school should follow.

Because even the best planned events might experience some sort of hiccup I also read numerous posts on the subject from authors who shared their experiences in the trenches of elementary schools. Here are my top ten tips to minimize some of those hiccups:

Tip # 1

Alexis O’Neill

Before you do anything, sign up for blog posts from School Visit Experts. Alexis O’Neill offers a place for published authors to find and share advice on how to create and deliver quality programs for kids, teachers, and librarians. It’s an awesome blog about author school visits. Even if you’re not yet published, sign up and…

This morning I had a frustrating discussion with a student from another class (whom I know from teaching in our after-school program).

Let me preface by saying that from June to September of this year, my department wrote a new short story unit of study. Although the goal of the unit was to introduce close reading strategies and routines for independent reading, we carefully chose stories based on our overarching theme of justice, injustice, and oppression, and we paired each story with a corresponding nonfiction current events article. For example, Joan Bauer’s “The Truth About Sharks,” about a teenager wrongfully accused of shoplifting, was paired with an article about wrongfully accused convicts and the compensation they receive (or don’t receive). Langston Hughes’ story “Passing” was paired with an article about Rachel Dolezal and discussions ensued about how the time period of each caused main character Jack and Dolezal make the choices they made. It’s a pretty challenging and engaging unit that I’m proud of and that most students have really been enjoying – and that’s saying a lot because middle school students don’t often express their pleasure in what they’re learning.

So this morning, when this student came to tell me that we should consider reading things that are less dated, I was shocked. When I asked what he meant his reply was…interesting. One direct quote: “You mean to tell me, that in the whole big, gay United States, that gay people are oppressed? When they can get married now?” He felt the same way about black people. Racism? It just doesn’t really exist anymore. I did try to explain that he is lucky that he lives in a very diverse section of New York City where he doesn’t directly see acts of injustice against minorities on a regular basis, but that they do exist. His arguing was relentless. I literally had to pull up news articles to show him that, yes, gay and transgender people are bullied and murdered, black people are killed and oppressed, etc. “Yes,” he said, “but out of how many people? That’s not really a lot of people then, is it?” His basic argument was that we know all this stuff already, so why do we have to learn about it. “School is supposed to further our knowledge,” he said as if I wasn’t doing my job.

At first, I felt super combative. “So what you’re saying is that you should never read anything you know something about?” I asked. And, “So it’s okay for transgender people to be killed as long as it’s a small percentage?” And, “It’s going to be your job as you grow to educate people who don’t know as much as you do.” I realized I was wasting my breath because he just kept saying that we know about gay people and black people, and I switched the focus, explaining that his job was to become a better reader, and the strategies he was learning were going to help him do that. That regardless of whether or not he agreed with the content, the goal of the unit was to teach him close reading skills of fiction and nonfiction so that he could apply those skills to help him understand difficult texts.

He said okay, but that he still didn’t think we should be “reading about things we already know.” I sent him back to homeroom because the bell was going to ring. I spent a good part of the morning trying to figure out if his argument was really about familiarity with these topics or about feeling uncomfortable with them. Should I have pursued the argument further? I don’t know if it would have made a difference, and I had a class of 30 waiting for me. How can we convince students like this that there’s a greater world out there, and we’re part of it. That we can’t ignore what’s going on just because we don’t see it or it doesn’t affect us directly? I’m surprised that with all the access we have to media, some kids are still living in a bubble. It worries me.

It’s January and many of us made—and happily abandoned—resolutions. I made only one, with my family, and that is to go at least three musicals. We’ve already seen one and I’m feeling pretty sassy about that.

When I was a teenager, I often resolved to exercise more. One January I headed out for my first run. Somewhere I got the idea that I’d lose lots of weight if I wrapped plastic wrap around my torso, so off I sprinted, layers of plastic squeaking under my shirt, up our street. I went perhaps 1/20th of a mile and, panting and overheated, gave up.

I’ve never been good at sprinting. I am better at making plans, and then, when I fail to meet my goals, making new ones.

Writers are often great goal setters.

Some of my writing resolutions have been: Write for two hours every day. Or: Write 1500 words a day. And there was: Finish the novel by summertime.

Sometimes I followed the resolutions, but more often they get forgotten or deliberately, almost defiantly ignored.

I think what gets in the way is another meaning of “resolution.” A photo with high resolution is one with great clarity. The closer you look at it, the more detail it yields. You can get very, very close, and the photo still looks crisp.

But the closer you look at my resolutions, the fuzzier they become. Write for two hours a day. Which two hours? Is thinking about the plot considered writing? Does that include “research” on the Internet? What about correspondence—is that considered writing? Any self-respecting wordsmith can parse his or her own meaning here.

Write 1500 words a day. Does that mean new words? Or can you use a revision as part of that word count even though it feels like cheating? Does brainstorming or thinking out character traits count?

Finish the novel by summertime. Okay, that one feels more finite, but then we have the definition of “finish.” Crummy first draft? Revised third draft, ready for critique? And is it still summer in September? What about Indian summer, which comes to my town in October?

A third meaning of “resolution” comes to play too. How can we be done with things, bringing them to resolution, without a high-resolution resolution?

So I am mulling over how to keep myself from writing resolutions without much resolution. My work in progress is coming to a close. I could tinker with the ending for months, trying many forms and possibilities. But that wouldn’t bring the project to resolution.

I resolve: to send the draft by the date I just wrote on my calendar, February 10, 2015. Now that’s a resolution about resolution, with resolution.

Waggers is a Razortail Whippet. The famed Razortail Whippet isn’t actually a breed recognized by the Westminster Kennel Club, but that might be because I made it up. Waggers needed his very own category. His tail is that unique. I have a feeling there are a lot of un-identified Razortail Whippets out there just waiting for Westminster Kennel Club to recognize them, too.

Aside from his destructo-tail, Waggers is really a sweet little man, who loves to do anything Moni and Michael want and will stop at nothing to protect their house from the most evil of all villains, the Sciuridae, also known as the squirrel.

I think you’re onto something, Stacy and the WKC should consider the Razortail Whippet as a new breed!

In 70 words or less, provide a succinct plot description of your story.

Moni and Michael are so excited to adopt Waggers. Waggers is too. His tail goes crazy. He can’t stop it. Moni and Michael don’t mind. Waggers is so sweet, and it’s just a tail. How much harm can it do?

What inspired you to write this story?

Waggers was inspired by our most recent family member, Desi, a German Shepherd/Rhodesian Ridgeback mix we adopted from the pound. She has got a tail on her that literally clears tables and pounds cracks in walls. It’s amazing it took me more than a week to realize she was the perfect protagonist for a story.

What was the biggest challenge you had writing your story? How did you overcome it?

The biggest obstacle to this story was to take reality and fictionalize it such that it works as story, not fictionalized reality. That must sound weird, but it’s sort of like the difference between a person trying to act vs. someone acting, or, say, pretending to be excited about a present vs. being skin-tinglingly excited.

What other YA/MG books have you written? Do any of them feature a key dog character? If so, which ones? What are these stories about?

This is my seventh book. Five of the seven are aquatic picture books. The sixth is a middle grade fiction with dragons. This is my first dog book, and it has been so much fun. I want to write about dogs all the time now. Maybe it’s because of Desi, or maybe it’s because writing this story has been so much fun. Either way, I think Waggers is the beginning of a new trend.

What kind of story can we expect next from you? Is it about a dog? If so, what is it about?

My next story is a picture book called Tour de Trike, and it’s about a tricycle race. There are no dogs, not yet anyway. The YA I’m working on is set in a drowning world. There are no dogs in it either. However, I have the outline for a new MG called Dogspell. Tada!! It’s about a dog and a girl who swap places. Literally.

What else would you like us to know about you or your story?

Hmmm…how about that that adopting a dog—which is what Waggers is all about—is one of the most exciting, most fun, most rewarding experiences, but it can be hard too. After all, a dog is a new family member. You have to get to know them and vice versa. There might be days when walking the dog is a drag (or you’re dragged). Don’t give up! It will get better. Or, you’ll fall in love with your dog and not care as much. Maybe a little of both. Desi’s tail has gotten better. She still clears a coffee table every once in a while, but I’ve seen her actually slow her tail when walking by one. And I’ve learned to put things up a little higher. But most of all, she’s become a part of our family. I can’t imagine a day without her.

Good advice, Stacy. Taking care of a new puppy or dog requires a lot of time and work.

Can you remember the first book that made an impact on you? And why?

Gosh, that’s a tough one. I’ve been reading since I was three. Go Dog Go was my most favorite book then. It was the book that taught me to read, the one I memorized, the one I took with me when I ran away from home at the age of 3 to go to school. I followed our neighbor to the high school around the corner, found my way to the principal’s office. He said I’d have to be able to read to go to his school. I proudly whipped out Go Dog Go and read it cover to cover. I got a tour of the school after that, and I was in preschool the next week. Go Dog Go!

Thats’ a great story and why am I not surprised that you’d want to start at high school?

What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

Everybody’s road to publication is different. Don’t be afraid to try anything, no matter how crazy, in your writing. And don’t give up. It can get hard, really hard some days. But the people who make it are the ones who stick with it. That advice has stuck with me through some pretty bleak moments, and gotten me through them.

I agree a 100%. It’s the writers who stick with it and struggle through the tougher times that finally see a contract.

Where can readers go to find out more information about you and/or your books?

My website is a great place to start. If they don’t find enough there, or on FB, Twitter, or my blog, drop me an email. I’d love to hear from you!

Fear. There are about a zillion different fears in the world, and many are given names. Did you know there’s a name for the fear of belly buttons (omphalophobia)? And a fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth—arachibutyrophobia. Try working that into your next casual conversation. There are writing related fears, too: The fear of books is Bibliophobia; fear of making changes is tropophobia. There’s a fear of working on computers- cyberphobia. And worst of all, the fear of making decisions: decidophobia.

So with all that trepidation around us, controlling our every anxious breath as we try to create stories, what can we do?

The list of recommendations is long: breathe mindfully, meditate, take long walks, drink soothing tea, brainstorm, draw pictures and design story boards, pick up your writing in the middle of a sentence. But we all know that these can be crumple zones of weakness when it comes time to wrestle with the muse. The muse can be amazing, but she’s fickle and she’s mean.

My solution: stop believing in the muse.

It’s a hard notion to let go of, because that muse is So. Darn. Real. You know the feeling when you are in the groove, singing along with language and emotion. The work is just falling out of you, like you’re the sky and lovely, fat snowflakes are coming out of nowhere, spreading beauty in all directions. You can almost feel her leaning in, guiding your hands over the keys imperceptibly, breathing her powerful breath into your inhalations.

But she’s not there.

You don’t like that? Okay. Let’s not fight over it. Let’s pretend she doesn’t exist, just for a moment. Let’s pretend that everything you’ve ever written or thought to write or dreamed of writing someday actually came from within you. Let’s pretend that nothing else made it happen, save a combination of grit, determination, timing, good fortune and the kindness of family members or good friends that helped pave the way. Maybe your favorite aunt gave you your first (dented) typewriter. Okay, that’s a kind of blessing, but it’s not the muse. Maybe the beauty of your newborn son’s face inspired you to write a gorgeous poem or song. That’s love, not the muse. Maybe you dreamed your plot, and it all spilled out of you before you even got a cup of coffee, you were so busy listening to the—

Don’t say it. She’s not there.

Everything you do is you and the magic of your life.

Everything you dream is yours, and you can make it true.

We are our stories, our fantasy plots, our beloved and dastardly characters. This is US. Humans were made to tell stories: We teach our young with story, we spread news, we warn of danger. Stories are the grist of our survival. Without them we would have died out before the mastodon.

I believe that the muse is really the gentle puffs of magic I make myself when I am working. It’s a mystical by-product of imagination. When I get in the zone I lose time, sound and my surroundings. I make that dream world by simply showing up to do my work.

I am not saying that every time I work I make great stuff. Some of it is junk—okay A LOT of it is junk. But I have to make the junk in order to make the good stuff. It’s all a matter of creating the most raw material possible. Isaac Asimov, back in 1981, wrote an editorial about writing and rejection for his Science Fiction Magazine, December 21, 1981. He talked about knowing that work can be unworthy, despite the effort:

That is the possibility all of us live with. We sit there alone, pounding out the words, with our heart pounding in time. Each sentence brings with it a sickening sensation of not being right. Each page keeps us wondering if we are moving in the wrong direction.

Even if, for some reason, we feel we are getting it right and that the whole thing is singing with operatic clarity, we are going to come back to it the next day and re-read it and hear only a duck’s quacking.Despite fearing the duck, Asimov wrote and wrote and wrote.

We all should. If there is a muse, she’ll only visit when you are so hard at work you don’t notice her slipping in.

In 1939, during World War II, Great Britain’s Ministry of Information made a series of three motivational posters to stiffen resolve in the event of Nazi occupation. Though thousands of copies were printed, they were never used and eventually were lost. In 2000, a copy of the “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster was rediscovered in Barter Books, a second-hand bookshop in Alnwick, Northumberland. Since Crown Copyright expires on artistic works created by the UK government after 50 years, the image is now in the public domain. I use it as a daily reminder of where the “muse” lives.
Let’s get back to work.

As a former teacher, I tell time in school years. Last year, I had a lot of time to write. I was unemployed and waiting on a baby. I wrote every day for hours and hours. With coffee in hand and my dog at my feet, four hours was a minimum on a weekday.

I finished a draft of the middle grade novel I’ve been writing for five years. After the celebration, I sat down to read my complete draft. I didn’t like it, and for good reason. It’s not any good.

So this year, the name of the game is revision. That first full draft wanders through characters and happenings, that in the end, don’t matter to the core of my character’s story. They’re boring and blah, which is a pretty bad review coming from the author.

Now, when I sit down to work, I have my first draft on one screen and a new document on another. My focus is precision. For each new scene, I take my idea and ask myself a few hard questions.

Does this scene provide my character with a choice to make? (Is she active?)

Does the choice at hand make life harder for my character?

Does the scene propel the story forward? Or can the story go on without it?

Little by little, my blank document is filling up. Sometimes I reach over to the other screen, grab an entire scene and drop it in. Those are good moments. Easy moments. Other times, I find myself recreating so that I can answer the above questions with a resounding, yes.

Some of the original scenes play in my head like a movie. Those are the scenes that make it over. I know where they are in the first draft. They have clarity and purpose. The scenes that get left behind are so forgettable, that even I can’t remember what’s in them. And that’s okay. They helped me along the way the first time I made it to THE END.

This year, I don’t have so much time to write. This happens when I get out my computer:

There’s a generous woman from my church who watches my son three hours a week. That’s my dedicated writing time. Other than that, I take the few moments I can find here and there. I made a goal for the month of November to wake up at 5:30 and write before my son gets up, usually around 7:30. The first few nights, he woke up ten times each. I was not able to make coherent thoughts at 5:30. After that, the time change got him. Now he wakes up at 6:00. I find it kind of humorous, actually. That’ll teach Momma to make goals.

But in all seriousness, the few moments that I do find are productive. Rather than writing with abandon as I did last year, I now write with precision as the goal, both in my use of time and words on the page. My writing is better for it, and so am I.

Some of you may know Deborah Halverson as a former children’s book editor at Harcourt. Some of you may know her through the children’s books she’s authored: HONK IF YOU HATE ME, BIG MOUTH, and LETTERS TO SANTA. And some of you may subscribe to her advice at DearEditor.com website. While well familiar with all that Deborah Halverson does with triplets in tow, I became a huge fan of her how-to-write-YA book, WRITING YOUNG ADULT FICTION FOR DUMMIES. It is my number one go-to-craft-writing-resource in the courses I teach at UC Berkeley and Stanford because she nails every point I want to cover with my students in a clear, concise, and understandable manner and simplifies my job.

Halverson has now come out with a new writing craft book, WRITING NEW ADULT FICTION no doubt because of all the buzz this new genre featuring eighteen-to-twenty-five-year-old characters is getting. She solicits NA contributors–Alana Albertson, Sylvia Day, Karen Grove, Robin Ludwig, Kevan Lyon, Molly McAdams, and Nicole Steinhaus–to give those of you interested in writing or teaching NA fiction more insight. And like she does in her YA writing craft book, she breaks down just what you need and want to know about writing NA fiction in the same clear manner with full engagement.

So if you have questions about writing NA fiction and want answers, leave a comment on this post and share this book give-away contest on any social media platform of your choice. The winner will be selected on November 8, 2015 and sent their very own signed copy of WRITING NEW ADULT FICTION.

Disclaimer: I am probably the worst blog hopper ever. Mostly because I accepted Adi Rule’s invitation when I don’t actually have a blog. Also, because after being tagged roughly a decade ago, I am just now getting around to this.

Fortunately, the crew at Quirk & Quill took me in like the starving internet-urchin that I am. They gave me a blanket, a crust of bread, a platform for posting, and a deadline. So many problems solved so quickly!

Which is all fine and well and clever. The bio writer chose to focus on Adi’s cats more than one might expect, but so it goes—no bio writer is perfect. My bio writer once called me a “writer of ‘some’ renown” when clearly what was intended was “internationally beloved man of mystery whose books you should purchase by the truckload.” I could deal with the slip-up, but the ironic quotes around the word ‘some’ were not appreciated.

CAMERA WHIPS TO ADI RULE: All cats aside, Adi is truly one of the most gracious writers I know. And talented to the extreme. I once heard her read a scene that included the sentence “What ho, Hat?” I have no idea how to punctuate that, but it was a boy talking to a hat and it was the funniest scene I’ve ever heard aloud and if Adi will just send it to me, I will print it up on a t-shirt and wear it at all times.

WHAT DOES THE TITLE MEAN? In pirate speak it translates to “we will kill you instead of taking you captive.” The black flag is the visual embodiment of this concept. In publishing speak it translates to “no one knows what it means and you might have to change it.”

WHAT IS THE NAME OF YOUR CHARACTER: Virtually all of my characters lie about their names at some point, so listing them would be futile. The most interesting name is probably “Death’s Abbot”—a pirate who got his name by surviving a poisoning by the plant monkshood. He is not historical but if he were and he met Blackbeard, there would be a fight. Blackbeard would leave the encounter in a wheelbarrow.

WHEN AND WHERE IS THE STORY SET? The story is set on Isla sin Nombre—whose inhabitants simply call it Sin. The island is made up, but certainly inspired by my career as a travel writer and my travels through the tropics.

It is set in an ambiguous time period during which bounty hunters roam the sea on giant turtles and oversized rogues keep snarling hyenas as pets. There is no WiFi.

WHAT SHOULD WE KNOW ABOUT THE PROTAGONISTS? Nick and Sophie live in a den underneath a gnarled oak. Their father, a famed pirate, left them with a map, a key, and two throwing knives. In the book’s opening pages, a one-eyed man finds them and offers a simple trade: in exchange for the map and key, he will sail them to Sin and show them the man who killed their father. By the end, the siblings will need every millimeter of those two throwing knives.

WHAT IS THE MAIN CONFLICT? If there’s one thing this project has an excess of, it’s conflict. The main emotional conflict is between Nick and Sophie as they each separately wrestle with the idea of revenge, what it means, what its ramifications are, and if it is worth seeking in light of the fact that the entire island is trying to capture them.

WHAT IS THE GOAL FOR THE MAIN CHARACTER? Nick and Sophie’s goals often diverge. Nick wants revenge. Sophie wants to stay alive. These two goals are often in conflict. As they evolve and new information comes to light, their goals change dramatically.

WHEN CAN WE EXPECT THIS TO PUBLISH: Tomorrow? Next week? Tough to pin down. But I do know that my incredible agent will be receiving a draft very soon.

ANYTHING ELSE YOU WANT TO SAY? Yes, please! I have another book—much lighter in tone—called Ronald Zupan and the Pirates of Borneo! (these are more whimsical pirates) which comes out from Bloomsbury in fall 2016 with a sequel the following year. I really hope you read it, because I think it’s funny.

One of the standard questions writers ask ourselves is: What does my character want?

As we design our plots, we come up with answers: A friend to trust. The elimination of a disease. Equality. Healing from loss. Parental approval.

Asking my characters what they want, and finding the answer has been in my author toolkit for a long time. But I’ve gotten predictable results, which has made me decide to look at the idea from a different angle.

First, let’s start with precision of language. When I say I “want” a cookie, I am really saying that I desire a cookie. To go deeper with our characters, many writers have learned to ask: What is her heart’s desire?

Hearts desire many things. Most of them are intangible. The kid who wants a friend to trust desires safety and companionship. The teen that wants the disease to go away desires physical wellness and the ability to be “normal.” And so on.

These kinds of desires drive much of kid lit plotting, including my own. But today I am thinking of wanting from the point of view of lacking, rather than desiring. And I am seeing it from behind a longer lens.

The main character in my work-in-progress is really different from most everyone in his backward little village. He wants to belong, to be accepted for who he is. So what does he lack, other than a sense of belonging and acceptance? If I think more deeply, I find that he lacks skill in adapting to his village’s prejudices. He lacks the strength required to be different, to be rejected. These lacks are driving my plotting. I need to give him opportunities to try to adapt (and fail, of course). I need to put him in circumstances in which he can learn (painfully, of course) strength in the face of rejection. He may or may not get what he desires, which is acceptance. But if I give him enough opportunities, he will evolve into someone who can live through that.

Looking at characters from the point of view of what they lack, rather than what they desire, can help writers go deeper and help their characters evolve in unpredictable ways. If you plot this way, or want to try, I’d love to hear from you.